Sunday, December 26, 2004

Have a Merry and a Happy!

Well Ho Ho Ho everyone! I hope all my faithful readers had a meaningful Christmas! Ours can be described in a few words: stomach virus (me), accordingly leaving a day later than we had planned; 11 hour car trip from North Carolina to Mississippi; the kids did great, I must say, including Melanie, considering that she was duct taped into her car seat that whole time; introducing Melanie to all her cousins for the first time; lots of great food; really really cold weather for the heart of Dixie; David's brother and wife stranded in Memphis which was in the throes of an ice storm; lost luggage, which arrived on Christmas Day; the toy of the year, for the older kids: cell phones. Now I can't tell if that's really a phone ringing or just Colin or Quentin messing around with their ring tones! Christian is tightened up with radio control Monster Trucks, although the poor thing can't get a turn in because the older kids (Daddy included) want to play with them too! Lisa has a new TV for her room, so now she won't have to fight the older three musketeers for a turn. She can sit in her room and watch marathons of Disney Princess movies to her heart's delight!

But the best gift of all can't be measured in rebates and receipts and wrapping paper and bows, and stock in the Scotch Tape compay (3M, the employer of David's brother Don and wife Linda -- have to put in a plug there!) Our greatest gift this year is in the shape of a little brown-haired, raisin-eyed girl, who acts as if she has been in this family all along, who enchants everyone she sees with her smile and her "Miss America" wave, who sleeps like a champ, even in a strange bed and a strange house. Who sings and hums all the time while exploring this new world she has fallen into; who has decided this is a pretty nice place after all, and the people she now calls her family are not so bad either! I still sit amazed at how the cosmos has given us such precious gifts from Kazakhstan, Lisa and Melanie, and why we were fortunate enough to have been led to them. And I sit filled with gratitude that I am their mom; and that my three blond boys may have come direct from our gene pool, but these two Kazakh young ladies are no less our family, even though they came to it by way of a longer path.